Roger Lovette writes about cultural concerns, healthy faith and matters of the heart.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Station 4 - Jesus Meets His Mother

photo by jimforest / flickr

"Is it nothing to you all who pass by?Look, see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow."Lamentations 1.12

We move on, we pilgrims. So we come to this Fourth Station
on the winding, twisting way that will lead to the Cross. Looking up we can’t
help but be touched. The bloody, pain-filled Jesus—picks up his splintered
cross and staggers toward Calvary. And in the crowd that lined the roads he
picks out a face. His Mother. This must have been the hardest day of her hard
life. All along she knew it would come to this. That scary time at the
beginning when King Herod had vowed to kill all the baby boys and she and Joseph
fled that cold night to save their child. Was this a prelude of what was to
come? When we do not know what went on in that little house of Joseph and Mary
and Jesus and his brothers during those silent years. When he was twelve she
knew he was different when they found him in the Temple talking like an adult.
His father’s business? Surely she must have whispered to Jehovah night after
night, “Keep him safe.”

One day he left them—and how she missed him. Hardly a day
went by that she did not wish he had stayed home and worked with Joseph in the
shop. But that was not to be. And before long she would hear in the village
that he had his enemies. Important people saying terrible things about her son.
And when things got so bad she sent his boys to bring him home. He wouldn’t
come.

photo by worldstreetphotos.com / flickr

And so it has come to this. Standing before Pilate. Beaten
like a criminal. Tortured, God how he was tortured. And then this journey that
will lead—she could not even put her mind around the word. But she was
there—standing at the edge of the crowd.

Staggering along—her saw her. His mother. How can you cram a
lifetime of memories into a moment? Jesus must have done that. And so did Mary.

What does it mean this Fourth station? Jesus meets his
mother along the road. This faith business always is a relational word. A human
word. A compassionate word.

Sceptics sneer. Bleeding hearts. Unpractical dreamers. All
this helping just does not compute—or change anything. And so we are left with
the Michael Browns and the Fergusons and the terrible memories of Sandy Hook.
The list is endless. Injustice everywhere.
Unmarried mothers who don’t know how they will make it. Children whose
lunch boxes they cannot fill for there is so little food. Those sad gaunt faces
of mothers in Africa and Haiti and Iran so have so little. Those frightened
undocumented mothers who do not know what the future will hold for them and
theirs.

And so the Church points to this mother and child reunion.
Attention must be paid. This Fourth Station is a

photo by Robert Croma / flickr

stopping off place. We cannot
just pass by like all those good folk in the Samaritan story. Looking up at
this scene: we know that Jesus never turned away. Doesn’t it mean that we also
must stop and look and listen and then respond.

Biographers write that when Theodore Roosevelt was Police
Commissioner in New York he picked up a book of photographs by Jacob Riis. The
book showed picture after picture of people in the tenements. Immigrants.
Terrible places where ten people lived in one room. Flats where rats ran freely.
Places no human should live. The photographer called his book, How the Other
Half Lives. Roosevelt was so moved that he decided to pay Mr. Riis a visit. He
knocked on the man’s door. No answer. So Mr. Roosevelt took one of his calling
cards and wrote: “Dear Mr. Riis, I have read your book and I have come to
help.” He placed the card in the door and left.

Before we move on, look closely at this Station. Look
through the eyes of Jesus. He reaches out to all the mothers from then until
now. It doesn’t matter what we say or do—we believers—it comes down to this. We
see like Jesus. And we must come to help.

Photo by Eric.Parker of Good Friday Procession in Little Italy, Toronto 2014/ flickr

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Roger

About Me

Minister-writer who cares about the world and all God's children. I've Pastored six churches--served as Interim Pastor for seven other churches since my supposed retirement.I have written five books and a multitude of articles.